Sharon’s Pecan Cheese Ball
Sharon’s pecan cheese ball, the holiday appetizer that converts the “ew, cheese ball” crowd. The secret nobody ever guesses: pineapple in heavy syrup.
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Sweatshirt Day
Sweatshirt Day has no date, but you know it when it comes. This year it was September 27: the sweater bag came out, the AC went quiet, the window opened.
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The Night the Northern Lights Came to North Georgia
On the night of October 10, 2024, the northern lights reached north Georgia. I put the top down, drove north, and watched the sky turn red from the side of the highway.
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Why October Through January Is My Happy Place
Most people wait all year for summer. I wait for October through January: the oven back on, Halloween, nine pies, latkes, Christmas lights, and a table full of people against the dark.
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Sharon’s Chili
Sharon’s chili con carne, with beans: browned beef, a spice ball of bay and allspice, and the Tejana Chili Queens history behind the bowl. Football food.
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Put Down the Camera
The 9/11 Memorial Museum has a room where they ask you to put the camera down. Seven trips to Ground Zero, and the photograph I did not know I still had.
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Somebody Picked These Chiles
Hatch chile farmworkers pick by hand through a sixteen-hour day for under $6,000 a year. A Labor Day essay about what my twenty-five pound box actually costs.
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Oh Noooo, It’s Mr. Grill
Back in the kamado forum days we mailed a rubber Mr. Bill figure around the country. Here’s the week Mr. Grill toured my grill, my kitchen, and Johns Creek.
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Maine: A Love Story, in Pictures
Photos from nine days on the coast of Maine: Boston oysters, a fogged-in lighthouse in Lubec, Acadia at dusk, and the deck where we did nothing.
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A Day for Jim, and a Tallgrass Prairie I Didn’t Know I Needed
A day for my late uncle turned into an accidental pilgrimage to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, the last of a vanished ecosystem on Osage land.
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Gotcha Day: The Kittens I Was Only Supposed to Foster
Six years ago I drove to Ari’s for two flea-ridden, squinty-eyed foster kittens and never gave them back. Finn and Callie’s gotcha day, flea baths and all.
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The One Where I’m the Monica
Every friend group has a Monica, and in mine it’s me. On being the connector and the host, the love language I inherited, and the chosen family it built.
